


Drinking Tea and Casting Shade

by LaBelleIzzy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 19:14:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14142738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaBelleIzzy/pseuds/LaBelleIzzy
Summary: A short sprint for #ransomweek on request because i have words jittering under my skin today and my friends on Discord suggested "tea" as a prompt.Happens I know a fair bit about tea.





	Drinking Tea and Casting Shade

Justin knows where the best teashops in Toronto are. He's scoped out every place that sells looseleaf tea, has opinions on different kinds of teabags, knows his tisanes (and when and why to use them) and his black, green, and white teas... 

He enjoys a good genmaicha with his Japanese food (though Samwell is NOT the best place for Japanese food so he saves the toasted rice green tea as a treat for when he goes home to his family).  
+-+-+-+-+

Sometimes, when he's stressed out, but has managed to keep himself hydrated and fed, he can stave off what Adam calls "coral reef mode" ...  
*eyerolling at his ridiculous BFF*  
...by going through his looseleaf tea collection and choosing to breathe in the aromas. Different blends have different properties, and different blends feel satisfying for different reasons.

He doesn't typically share this coping mechanism with many of the other sporty bros he knows, because oddly enough some people make assumptions or use slurs about you based on your beverage choice in America, and Justin isn't about that.

But Jack knows. He's seen Justin's tea infuser collection. They've spent some early morning time together in Canadian solidarity and silence, sipping hot brews together and staring out the kitchen window as the sun lightens the sky. They generally finish this irregular ritual with manly nods before going about their day. Justin thinks maybe they're mutually agreed to set a record for nonverbal communication, mornings like that. It's fun to think about.

However, Justin didn't expect to have anything like this in common with Bittle when he was a new frog. All blond hair and big eyes, the kid was surprisingly sturdy in some ways, and, well, _collapsible_ in others, at first.

But as Bittle, then Bitty, then Bits, established himself as a force for good within the social fabric of the team, he really found his way into Justin's coping techniques. 

Bitty would cook, and would talk about recipes. Bitty made an effort to surprise the team with favorite meals randomly. When he needled Justin for a favorite family home cooked recipe (as he had done with most of the team), and then started researching Nigerian-Canadian cooking fusion, Justin knew Bitty could be trusted. 

Bitty would make Justin's favorite pie when he's got a major deadline coming up, so that he'll have something good to look forward to after finishing some major academic task. Justin, Ransom, started looking after Bitty when Bitty was obviously procrastination baking, and would talk him through the procrastination and avoidance to gently guide him back to work, in part by eating some of the delicious procrastination baking and then praising Bitty in quiet ways till he was blushing and flapping his hands. 

Ransom started to share some of his special stress-relief tea, and it turned out that he, for a change, got to educate Bitty on something consumable. They had frequent, though short and passionate, arguments about what constituted tea and what occasions were the best for drinking tea. Ransom believes it's just a question of matching the tea to the occasion, while Bitty, the stiff-necked jerk, has the nerve to believe that sometimes coke was the best thing to drink.

Ransom did NOT think so. He demonstrated this on multiple occasions and had gotten Bitty to reluctantly admit that he might-could be mistaken on occasion.

But once the weather started getting truly hot, Bitty insidiously converted Ransom into liking the syrupy sweet concoction that is Georgia Sweet Tea. They sat on the back porch of the Haus, in the late-spring sunshine, trash talking the LAX bros, the grossest things the other guys on the team habitually did, recent celebrity gossip, ... and, tucked in among those light topics, they told stories of childhood, and talked more about comfort food, and what it was like being boys who grew up in such different parts of the world. Bitty was endlessly curious about Ransom's family, with his elder sisters and a hundred aunties, uncles, and cousins, and Ransom listened smiling as Bitty talked through the Bittle-Phelps family dramas.

And they drank tea. It wasn't quiet like it could be with Jack (I mean have you _MET_ Bittle?) but it was good. They understood each other. They could lean on each other.

+-+-+-+-+

Justin is packing up his tea stash in preparation for graduation, and saves out a particular tin of mint, sage, and hyssop, that he's found useful for focus and clarity (and also for starting to decaffeinate himself late at night when he finally has to sleep). He rummages in the desk drawer for one of those little holiday gift bags that his mom trained him to save, and pops the tea tin inside with a chirpy, cheerful note for Bitty.

He knows Bitty will remember him anyway, and he and Adam will be visiting Samwell a lot, he's sure. 

But sharing his tea with Bitty, somehow it feels like tying up a loose end in the friendship. Like sharing his nana's recipe for his favorite childhood dinner, except this is even more personal. This is about Justin's discoveries, his own developed taste. It's about the long silly bitchy heartfelt talks he and Bitty had shared. And it's about how he hopes their friendship will continue, that he will remember Bitty, that he hopes he'll be remembered with the same warmth.

Such a tiny little tough bro. Such a sharing, warm hearted bro. 

Justin smiles, pats that shiny little gift bag. Gonna be all right, little bro. We're both gonna be all right.

**Author's Note:**

> love to Torkz and parrishsrubberplant, and Kay and Ant... 
> 
> un beta'd and unedited, posted on the fly because I can.  
> \-----
> 
> Comments are love. <3  
> thank you Ngozi for creating this comic, which you can find and start reading at http://checkpleasecomic.com/comic/01-01-01  
> or on Tumblr at omgcheckplease.tumblr.com !
> 
> and you're welcome to come find me on tumblr and nerd out about these adorable kids. =)  
> come find my main blog at labelleizzy on tumblr and Dreamwidth, or my omgcp sideblog at makeshittyknightproud: I reblog fanart, fanfic, and meta.


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